Ad Undas
by Del Lago
Summary: RE5 - If there’s a chance she’s alive, he’ll go through the very fires of hell to save her. ChrisxJill
1. Chance

_"It shows a sinful world of creation, surrounded by the Serpent of Eternity, the Uroboros, and characterized by the four elements and the sins corresponding to them; the whole circle relates to the centre, the weeping eye of God, i.e., the point where salvation, symbolized by the dove of the Holy Ghost, may be achieved by compassion and love."_

Grunting in frustration, Chris jammed his finger on the button of the TV remote a little harder than necessary, switching to another channel of tedious and ridiculously bad daytime TV shows. His entire apartment-couch specifically-smelled of stale alcohol and sweat, but by now he was more than impervious to the stench; it was just another regularity to him, one which could be compared to waking up every morning.

He sighed as yet another repeat of a bad soap opera that he'd already watched twice before came onto the screen, and he threw down his empty beer bottle onto the dirtied carpet at his feet to join his collection of others that had been tossed there previously.

It was times like these, the unwanted hours he was forced to take off work, that had Chris bored senseless, and desperate for something to stop him thinking-something that would occupy his mind so it wouldn't revert into his own personal hell that he couldn't help but torment himself with.

Jill.

It had been almost two years since the incident. Two years since she had given her life for him-barrelled herself into the tyrant Albert Wesker as he choked Chris' life away by a single hand to his throat. Two years since she had fallen down a cliff face to her death, all in the manner of saving his life.

Chris had learned to fight the memories; when at work, his job would hold them at bay-his mind focused solely on his mission, task at hand, and even paperwork. It was better than dwelling. _Anything_ was. And when he couldn't work, he would body build. Push his body to its limits, as far as he could go. It was a sort-of reprimand: the stronger he could make himself, the more lives he thought he could prevent from being lost, like Jill's was.

And when he could do neither of those things, he numbed himself with alcohol and bad television shows. It was all he could do to blot away the pain. The pain of losing the one woman in his life he had ever given a damn about.

At times, when he was in his in a particularly drunken stupor, he would curse Jill, wherever she was, for leaving him to rot like this. It could hardly be called a life she had saved, or rather, left him with. And other times, when he was much more sober-usually the aftermath-he would curse himself, because he had _only_ himself to blame for his state of living. The rest of the time, however, he didn't care. He simply functioned; it was all he could manage without Jill. She had been his stability, his backbone through the difficult times. She had been with him since the beginning, and he had fallen so deep for her there wasn't any chance of ever getting out of the hole he had dug himself. He had misplaced his shovel long ago, and losing her had cost him a part of himself that no amount of counselling or 'getting on with life' would ever recover.

His sister, Claire, no longer visited him. In fact, she had blatantly refused the last time, saying if he wanted to see her _he_ would have to make the effort and come and visit her, instead. Dimly, he wondered if it were due to the fact that he had become unsociable, even to those closest to him. Or maybe it was the fact that his apartment smelled like the back-end of an old man's bar. Which ever one it was, it meant he hadn't seen his sister in almost a month. The only human company he had been in service with were those he worked with. And he couldn't even remember any of their names.

He was vaguely aware that he was coming apart at the seams, but without Jill life just didn't seem worth it anymore.

The shrill ringing of the phone startled Chris a little, jostling him from opening another bottle of beer. With another grunt, he slammed the bottle down on a side table next to his couch and got up stiffly to answer his phone.

"Hello?" His voice was croaky, hoarse.

"Redfield? Is that you?" Came an annoyingly loud voice through the receiver. Chris flinched at the volume, holding it gingerly from his ear.

"Yeah." His answer was curt. He wasn't in the mood for a conversation of any kind.

"It's Dunham." The voice was brisk, impatient. "I've just got a report in which I think you might want to look at. Now."

Chris frowned. "Hate to remind you, sir, but I'm off duty at the moment,"

"You think I give a shit? I'm sticking my neck out for you here, boy, and I expect you to show up within the next twenty minutes." Abruptly, the line went dead, leaving Chris both confused and annoyed.

Twelve minutes later, Chris was changed in clean clothes and ready to go. Still some-what drunk, he padded through the hallway of his apartment building, hoping he was presentable enough to be seen out in public. Markus Dunham wasn't a man who 'stuck his neck out', as he put it, for people, so Chris wondered what it could possibly be that Dunham wanted him to see.

The BSAA building was fairly busy; after all, it was midday and there were people bustling everywhere. No one appeared to be staring at Chris any longer than they normally would at a man who's arms were the size of small spruces as he lumbered through the halls, so Chris deducted he mustn't look as drunk as he thought.

With a sharp and quick rap to Dunham's office door, Chris let himself inside, closing the pinewood door behind him. Dunham-a large, greying man in his forties-was sitting at his desk, a large folder in his hands.

"Good, you're early. I hate waiting." As on the phone, his voice was impatient.

"You wanted to show me something, sir?" Chris asked. Dunham nodded.

"Yes. Have a seat, will you?" He gestured to the chair positioned in front of his desk. Chris sat. "This information is classified, as I'm sure you already know,"-Chris resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he knew the drill-"so it doesn't leave this room. Alright?" Chris settled for a nod.

"Good. So, about an hour ago, we received information that the Alpha team that was dispensed to that report in Africa about the bio weapons that are apparently there haven't been heard from in the last seven hours. Not a word. No one can get hold of them at all-any of them."

Chris frowned as he listened; he didn't see why this was something he wanted to hear, but kept listening.

"That's where you come in. I need you over there with them; find out what happened. I'll have an agent there from the African government who'll assist you." Chris couldn't help but feel as though the details were too vague, that there was something Dunham was leaving out.

"Why are you sending me, sir?" He was quizzical. It sounded like a routine job that a search crew should be doing, not him. Dunham sighed, fiddling with the folder in his hands.

"I could get in a lot of trouble for this. I shouldn't even be telling you at all, but, these are the data files faxed over from when Alpha were last contacted; they found a whole load of files in an abandoned warehouse apparently. I… well, I think you should take a look." He pushed the folder onto the desk and forward towards Chris, who took it carefully. He began leafing through the contents: pages printed with detailed files on different test projects.

Nothing caught his interest at first; it all seemed like babble to him. Files upon files of writing about villages, and the villagers of Africa-side effects of words he couldn't pronounce. As he skimmed, one file caught his eyes. A name. He recognized a name. His hand stopped, froze midst shuffling. He felt his mouth go dry, throat constrict. In bold words, it read:

**Test Subject: Valentine, Jill**

**Caucasian female**

**Eye color: blue**

**Subject has been in a medically induced stasis for an extended period. All vital signs including heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and temperature are within normal values.**

**A pigmentation abnormality has been observed. Effect of abnormality is limited to cranial hair follicles. **

**In addition, slight skin whitening (etiolation) has been observed.**

**Subject is of highest priority; Uroboros and P30 testing is currently being conducted. Tests are proving successful so far.**

Chris' fingers traced the outline of the page as he stared, disbelieving.

"You're our best agent, Chris. And I believe that there's something more going on over there than what reports say."

"And this is just a ruse to get me over there, huh?" Chris questioned quietly, fingers still on the paper. He felt numb; not the same numbness he usually got after a punch in the mouth from too much alcohol, but a different numbness. Shock.

"Oh, I assure you, that's real. I wouldn't have shown it to you otherwise. What kind of man do you take me for? I thought you should see it; make the decision for yourself. I know how you took her… death."

Chris was silent for a moment, deliberating, fingers still tracing over the words as though he were trying to etch every detail into his mind.

"When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow morning."

Suddenly, there was light filtering through his dark, shadowy overcast. There was a chance she was alive.

--

I've made certain altercations to this story because there are a few tiny plot holes I've discovered in Resident Evil 5, so I have patched them over with my own work. This _will _be ChrisxJill in future chapters, and hinting throughout. I will perhaps change the rating in later chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

_Ad Undas: _Latin translation - To Hell


	2. Mirage

The air was dusty, dry, and had a foul taste to it. It crept through Chris' nose, burning his nostrils and airway. His throat felt dry, cracked, and it burned as though there were some sort of creature clawing at his oesophagus. His tongue felt withered and thick, as though it were going to choke him. The air was putrid.

The heat made him feel as though his very insides were boiling alive; it felt as though he were being cooked, almost like a slice bacon. There was a layer of sweat on his skin, almost like a thin film, and he squirmed, it making him feel uncomfortable and clammy.

He thought it ironic that the very place where every creature, human or inhuman, was hostile, a lust for blood evident in their very eyes would be the place where the heat was unbearable, and the earth red, cracked and scorched. The phrase, "hotter than hell", seemed all but appropriate.

It occurred to Chris, after the umpteenth villager's face had split open, revealing a strange, four-segmented mouth filled with rows of dagger-like teeth just waiting to tear into the soft flesh on his bones, that the world would probably never be rid of such demons; the plagiarising kind, the creatures that turned people into monsters against their own will.

He knew that with every squeeze of the trigger, he took away another innocent life that had been condemned-the same as those that were once people at the Spencer Estate, but were unlucky victims of the body-ravaging virus.

He could not allow himself to dwell on it, on the innocent blood that covered his hands and clothing, because he also knew he had no other option. It was do or die. And Chris could not die. Not when there was a chance Jill was here somewhere, waiting for him to rescue her.

_Chance_. The word floated around in his mind. That was what he was going on. A chance. He was risking not only his own life, but the life of his newly acquainted "partner" as well. All for a chance.

He had no solid evidence that Jill was even alive; she could be dead, or worse, she could be like these villagers, a slave to whatever parasite riddled her body. His mind automatically shied away from those thoughts; she was alive, he told himself. She was alive, and this time he was going to save her.

* * *

"Chris, watch out!"

The loud, shrill yell of his partner snapped him into focus; he very narrowly dodged the double-bladed chainsaw as it swung around to meet him, wielded by a crazed man whose head was bulging out of the sack tied around it.

Chris managed to roll out of range of the chainsaw and kick the madman carrying it away, shooting an oncoming villager in the neck in the process. The blood squirted in all directions like a fountain, covering both Chris and the ground at his feet.

"You need to be careful!" The words carried over his partner's gun fire to his eardrums, and a sudden flash stunned his brain capacity for a few seconds.

"_Be careful, lug head!_" Half serious, half taunting, Jill's voice suddenly filled his ears. It was something she would often say to him when they were in the field together, or out on a mission and he came a little too close for comfort to danger.

Squinting from the dust and sunlight, he looked over at his partner who was struggling with a group of villagers. Her dark features had morphed into light skin, black hair becoming chocolate-brown.

He saw Jill in her stead.

"Chris, help!"

Jill's voice carried over to him like smoke, and suddenly he was thrown back in time; when he struggled against the hordes of infected mutants with Jill by his side.

Like the image of an oasis to a person lost in the desert, he was hit with a wonderfully powerful feeling.

Motivation.

He heaved himself forward, ignoring the deadly numb feeling in his legs; they felt heavier than lead weights. But that did not matter, not when his partner-no-not when Jill was in danger.

He charged forward, ripping a villager who had latched onto her back free from her, tossing him aside and planting a bullet between his eyes. A gunshot from behind spun him around, and he turned to face the other demons who dared touch even a hair on their heads.

His new-filled rage at protecting Jill made him stronger, and he pulled his arm back and snapped it forward into the face of the closest villager. As his hand impacted with the villager's skull, he heard and felt a satisfying crack as the bone snapped with the force of his punch. Blood and teeth spewed from it's broken mouth.

The demon screamed and fell back, clutching it's broken face in agony. Chris had no time to stand triumphant over his powerful hit, because the onslaught of villagers continued. The sound of gunfire, howling and splitting flesh filled the air as the villagers were disposed of.

But it was not over.

The deafening roar of the chainsaw made an unwanted return, as the madman had recovered from the solid roundhouse Chris had landed into his stomach.

"Shit!" Chris cursed. His ammo supply was dwindling. He reckoned he did not have enough to finish off this crazed lunatic. He would have to retreat.

"Fall back! We need a plan!" He yelled at Jill. She nodded, and the two darted off to take refuge behind a cracked wall. They moved quickly; lucky for them, the chainsaw man did not. They successfully lost him, hiding behind a wall situated in the bottom floor of an old, creaky, unstable looking building.

Chris checked the magazine in his gun; five bullets. He only had one more magazine to spare, and a single grenade perched in his pocket. And since the chainsaw wielding madman had gotten up after a kick that would break a normal person's insides, Chris deducted that it definitely wasn't enough.

He glanced over at Jill; she was watching him, uncertainty in her eyes.

"I don't have enough." He admitted, a frown on his features.

"I only have one magazine left…" She told him, a horrified expression making its way onto her face.

Chris' breathing became jagged. He glanced around frantically, searching for anything that could be of any use.

The omnipresent sound of the chainsaw could be heard somewhere in the distance, getting closer.

'Don't panic' Chris demanded himself internally, 'Panic is a soldier's worst enemy.'

As if luck was with him, his eyes zeroed in on a red barrel across from them, not twelve feet away. Inspiration hit as adrenaline made his brain work faster. The madman was getting closer.

"The barrel. We lead him to that, then blow it up. That'll finish him for sure."

Jill looked at him dubiously.

"Are you sure that'll work?" His jaw mashed together.

"It has to."

With determination, Chris pushed himself up from his crouching position. He glanced at Jill.

"When I get that the attention of that sick fucker over there, you blast the barrel and waste him." Jill's eyes widened.

"But what about you?" He grinned egotistically.

"Please. I'll be fine." And with that he took off running, out from behind the wall and into the open.

"Hey you sick freak!" He yelled out, waving his arms, "Here I am!"

The sound of the chainsaw being ripped and a loud growl was heard, and Chris braced himself as the chainsaw man came charging out from some unseen place, lumbering towards him. Chris dived out of the way as the chainsaw was swung in his direction, and quickly pushed himself to his feet and made a beeline for the red explosive barrel.

As expected, the chainsaw man went after him, an animalistic roar escaping from him as he ran with malicious intent after Chris.

"Now!" Chris shouted, throwing himself out of the way as a bullet was fired into the barrel, causing it to explode. A roar of pain was heard in the aftermath of the explosion, and Chris moved his hands from his head-his feeble attempt to protect himself from the blast where he lay a few feet away on the dusted, cracked ground-and stood up, cautiously wandering over to where the chainsaw man lay writhing on the ground.

The chainsaw discarded, Chris saw the madman's face and front torso had been blown away-the sack torn from his head. Bulbous-like tumours covered what was left of his being, and Chris felt a small surge of pity as the man gurgled his last breath and died.

Soft, almost tentative footsteps behind him alerted his attention, and he half turned to see Jill approaching him slowly.

"Is it dead?" He nodded.

"Dead as dead. He's not getting back up this time."

"Oh, thank god."

"Great teamwork, Jill." Her face faltered suddenly, eyeing him with uncertainty.

"I'm sorry, what did you call me?" The voice that came from her mouth did not sound like Jill's. He frowned, confused, and blinked.

When he opened his eyes, Jill was gone. Instead a pair of deep, emerald eyes were watching him carefully from a face of dark features.

"Oh. Sorry, Sheva." He said lamely. He felt an odd mix of numbness and confusion. The entire time, it wasn't Jill. He had been convinced; it looked like her, sounded like her. But it was a ruse. It was not her.

Maybe it was a mirage from the unbearable heat and sun.

Or maybe he was just going crazy.

Or maybe, he truly was in hell, being tortured into seeing things that were not true, or real.


End file.
